Fiction and Non-Fiction
If you’re anywhere near Auburn, Alabama you may have heard about the destruction of the eagles nest by a housing developer. The situation is now under official investigation by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Apart from that it was a fairly quiet week. I did get The Head of the Serpent published but didn’t make much progress on the sequel. I expect this week to be better.
This past week, I reached the milestone of having written over a million words of publishable fiction.
I remember when I first began tracking my word count how one manuscript page – about 250 words – seemed a huge hurdle to reach every day. Now I’ve developed the writing muscle, and it doesn’t seem such a challenge.
At first glance, a million words sounds a lot, but I wrote those words over a six year period. I have a long way to go to emulate writers like John D MacDonald or Dean Wesley Smith for whom a million words is the annual target.
Just to help with the math on this, a million words a year is an average of about 2,750 words a day. I don’t think I’ll manage the next million words by the end of 2025. In the same way you don’t leave your doorstep and run a full marathon without preparation and training, making that leap to a million words a year requires similar planning and preparation. Not least in the planning is what to do with those ten to twenty books you write in that year!
As I said, I don’t think 2025 will be a million word year, but I should certainly be able to write the next million words in less than six years.
I’m sure I’m like most of you. I’m done with the US Election. We’ve had months, although it seems like years, of nothing but personal and negative attacks from both sides whenever you turn on the television, or look at any media. I don’t live in a swing state and I can only imagine how much worse it is there.
As I write this, tomorrow is election day. I’m no clearer in my mind on which of the major candidates to vote for. I’m not a one-issue voter, and it might be easier if I were. Both have some good policy ideas. Both are deficient in areas I consider important.
I did consider not voting this year, but to paraphrase my father. If you don’t vote, you can’t complain about the result. And I do like to complain about our politicians and Government!
Regardless of who you support, or regard as the lesser of several evils, please make sure to go out and vote tomorrow.
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